We begin this episode, the first third season episode, I might add, on oddly enough another planet, a huge reddish dust covered rock. All of these people with brown robes and gas masks are digging up the ground in a desert, watched closely by these warriors on horseback. One particular man in a brown robe, a young man by the sound of it, begins talking to an old man, and we learn that the young guy is called Dex and the old man is called Lexian.
We cross back to Earth. In the Command Centre, Alpha is looking worried, and he finally tells Zordon that he picked up a distress signal from the planet Edenoi, the planet that he was built on. He ran some further tests and found out that the planet was under heavy attack, and that his creator, King Lexian, could not be found. Zordon says that, although he would like to be of some help, Edenoi is so far away that it would be impossible to help them.
Crossing back to the planet, we see a giant space ship that looks particularly evil flying past. Inside the ship, a little robot announces to all of these other guys that, "the lord of evil, Count Dregon, is on the bridge." Count Dregon talks to a variety of henchmen that look as if they belong on PR, and tells them to destroy the planet.
Back on Earth, Aisha is sitting in the Youth Centre, on the telephone with Kim. Poor Kim has the flu, and although she is getting better, she’s still got a temperature. Aisha heads back to Adam, and Tommy and Rocky in the background stop sparring and walk over. Just then, Billy comes in and tells the rangers that he’s just spoken with Alpha and that the robot sounds sad. Lonely. The rangers briefly wonder whether robots get lonely, but Tommy suggests they all go visit him.
Meanwhile, that groovy space ship is blasting the planet, being watched by Zedd, who is using his visor-vision to watch from the lunar palace. Rita comes in and says that Zedd’s slipping - the rangers are on Earth, not in space. Zedd then says that Count Dregon is destroying a planet, and that Count Dregon has always been trying to one-up Zedd, by destroying whole planets when Zedd can’t even conquer one little planet. Rita then tells him that Finster’s new monster is sure to prove successful, but Zedd sits down indifferently (and I for one thought that right then, Zedd was about to have one of Rita’s migraines).
Back in the Command Centre, Alpha has obviously told the rangers about Edenoi, and although Zordon has some reservations, the rangers decide to go and check out the situation for Alpha. Zordon tells them that, because of the great distance, their powers may not be at their optimum level. The rangers then teleport into Angel Grove Desert, and now morphed, Alpha teleports the five of them to Edenoi. But now, Zedd can’t find the rangers on Earth, and they all decide that now would be the perfect time to conquer the world before Dregon set his eyes on it.
The Power Rangers land on the planet’s surface. They can hear explosions but oddly enough can’t see the kilometre-long space ship in the sky (those helmets must have worse blind spots than we suspected). They seek cover in a rock formation, and Aisha spots the robed-dudes all digging up the ground. Billy remembers that the planet was honey-combed with pockets of toxic gas, and they wonder why anyone would really want to dig that up. Then, a whole bunch of the robed-dudes led by the fellow called Dex leap towards the rangers. The Power Rangers try to convince them that they are here to help, but Dex doesn’t believe them, and similar to the rangers, he morphs and is suddenly wearing this black suit with a grasshopper helmet. Calling himself Masked Rider, he then attacks the rangers.
Quick cut back to the moonbase. Finster comes into the throne-room and tells Zedd and Rita that the monster is completed. They tell him to bring the monster out, saying that they must rule the Earth by sundown. Meanwhile, the rangers are getting their butts kicked by the robed-dudes, but it’s only because they aren’t fighting. Aisha mentions Alpha, and her attacker stops, but Tommy and Rocky, who have taken on the Masked Rider, aren’t having much luck. They run along side-by-side to him (this scene really made no sense at all) and then attack, but again, they aren’t doing too well.
However, the fight is being watched by Dregon, Double Face and some other dude, and they have no idea of who the rangers are. But if they defeat Masked Rider, they will acquire his powers, and so Dregon orders them to just blast them all. Meanwhile, Tommy and Rocky have fought to a stand-still when the blasting occurs. Both sides regroup, and Dex realises that even Dregon isn’t low enough to fire on his own men. The rangers repeat to Dex and his buddies that they came because of Alpha, and Dex realises that they really are friends. Just then, the blasts rain down again, and Dex leads them all to a cave to seek sanctuary. Up on the Spider Base, Dregon gets a little upset at his troop’s incompetence, and then says angrily that they will not escape his wrath.
To be continued...
Ladies and gentlemen, season three has started with a bang, a crossover episode. And surprisingly enough, I did more or less enjoy this one, although the funny thing about crossover episodes is that they sometimes sacrifice credibility in order to portray both sets of characters involved. This hasn’t happened yet, and I hope that it doesn’t. And another thing, where are the new zords? The rangers got new zords in season one, new zords in the start of season two, and now nothing? And poor Kim starts the season with the flu. Oh well, you can’t win them all.
Now, the best thing about this episode is that, not only do we learn a little bit more about the PR universe in general, but we also get to learn a lot about Alpha’s history. If all Alpha’s were hand-built, and there weren’t that many of them (well, this model is only Alpha 5), then it would explain why Alpha has such fond memories of Edenoi. Also, it might be just me, but I really like the idea of the Power Rangers on an interplanetary mission of peace. Okay, so they tended to fight a lot, but now our wonderful heroes are making themselves known all over the galaxy.
Onto the bad things about this episode. Now, I’m very sorry, but to me at least Dex got very annoying very quickly. Particularly his battle cries, and those pained ‘hiyahs’ he gave. Someone should’ve told him that, "we can’t all be Jason David Frank." Also, what was up with that fight scene? I mean, Rocky and Tommy confronted him, and then they all ran, and then they all attacked. Unless I’m missing something here, I can’t see the logic. And I can understand that they might be a little cynical about un-Edenites on their planet, but Dex beats up the rangers and only after the battle does he suddenly wonder, "Hm, gee, what am I beating them up for?"
And if anything, that fight scene just goes to show how much self control the Power Rangers are capable of showing. Hey, if it was me, I would’ve beaten the crap out of Dex the minute he made one of those stupid battle cries.
And another thing, focussing on the bad guys, I have to say huh? I think that we should have seen maybe a little bit more of them, just to understand them some more. I mean hey, Rita and Zedd get about five minutes per episode. Plus, they kept using the same footage over and over again, just dubbing a different thing for each character every time. I can forgive this done during zord battles, and I certainly didn’t mind when Rita always threw her wand down to Earth the same way, but one instance per episode please?
Oh well, despite this, I have to say that it was pretty good fare, and it will certainly be interesting to see how this scenario is played out.
Coming soon.
The best line in this episode, the first episode of season three, just has to be awarded to Lord Zedd for his absolute classic line when Rita was telling him about Finster’s new monster - "Since when have any of Finster’s monsters been able to walk and chew gum at the same time?" This kind of sarcasm from everyone’s favourite villain was just fantastic.